Field of the Invention
The invention relates to cloud computing, and more particularly to cloud-computing graphic servers.
Description of the Related Art
A graphic server provides a client host with graphic processing services.
Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram of an ordinary graphic server 106 is shown. The graphic server 106 comprises at least one graphic processor 112 which provides graphic processing services to generate graphic surfaces. A client host 102 is coupled to the graphic server 106 via a network 104. Because the client host 102 lacks the capability of graphic processing, when the client host 102 requires graphic processing services, the client host 102 sends a request to the graphic server 106 via the network 104. When the graphic server 106 receives the request from the client host 102 via the network 104, the graphic server 106 uses the graphic processor 112 to provide graphic processing services to generate a graphic surface, and then sends the graphic surface back to the client host 102.
A graphic server usually does not merely provide graphic processing services to a single client host. When a plurality of client hosts simultaneously send requests to the graphic server 106, because the graphic processor 112 of the graphic server 106 has limited processing capability and therefore cannot simultaneously provide graphic processing services to all client hosts, some of the client hosts must wait for a long time period to receive graphic surfaces generated by the graphic server 106, and service quality is therefore degraded. In addition, if the number of the graphic processor 112 of the graphic server 106 is increased, because it is complicated and difficult for the graphic server 106 to manage a large number of graphic processors 112, high performance of the graphic server 106 cannot be ensured. In addition, if there is a plurality of graphic servers 106 to provide a client host 102 with graphic processing services via the network 104, because different graphic servers have different types of graphic processors and need to be controlled according to different types of instructions, it is difficult to control the graphic servers with an integrated management structure. To avoid the aforementioned deficiencies, a new type of cloud-computing graphic server is required to improve quality of service provided to a client host.